Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

Its positioned so you can take 30 Valor and 30 Honor and combine two very tanky grandmaster traits on your uber-bunker.

Yep. There will be some pretty nasty bunkers in PvP coming soon!

You could try this for a while but with burning being our only condition and the time it lasts isn’t all that great for putting so much into condition damage. I only see condition damage being really useful if you can put 2-3 out with every few hits (such as scepter on a necro). Its not that its a bad idea for guardian, I just think there are better options.

Here is what I do that might interest you:

I’m full PVT, I run “Save Yourselves”, Signet of Wrath, and “Stand your Ground”. I’ve been playing with healing breeze over shelter but I’m not sure which I like more.

Anyways, the Signet of Wrath plus Wrathful Spirit and Vengeful makes for some pretty good damage output on top of the physical damage I already do.

Keep in mind too that this is for small and large scale WvW.

Lack of content and updates to outdated systems is why a lot of my friends have quit. The living story content has only held onto people for so long. Its nice they are finally putting out big “feature” patches to keep things a little more fresh but I’m not sure if it will be enough.

My guess is its a system to deter trolling. I wrong about a guy in JQ WvW that was wasting all our supply on flame rams in our keep. He did it for weeks so I wanted something to be done about it. After talking with support, I was told “we are currently working on a system to promote proper play”. This is the only thing that comes to mind when hear about this “friendly play”.

Sounds like a pretty solid change to me. Can any dev elaborate on “Players also have the option of buying these traits from a guide.” Its great you are giving lazy, rich players to just buy the traits but how much are they going to cost? Will we buy them with skill points or gold?

I enjoy mine enough but wouldn’t be against more black. I’d also like to see whirling wrath (guardian) with all black whirls instead of the blue just to see how it looks.

Its in a starter zone, so no. I personally wouldn’t even put champions in starter zones.

khorne.8592:

A open all option would be great. I’ve already destroyed left click on one mouse.

Definitely. Its been mentioned dozens of times too. Even a confirmation box would be nice and also allowing us to choose how many we open (kind of like the crafting system. Craft 1 or set a number to craft).

As of right now, all my blue essences of luck stacks in my inventory until I can get to a bank. I make 1-2 full stacks before I go and craft. It saves on time and clicking.

Ashen.2907:

My concern for GW2’s future is based on the fact that I take breaks from various games from time to time while waiting for content additions. I know others who do the same. This is the first game I’ve seen where little is added to draw a player back if/when they take a break.

This is what I do as well, it helps keep things fresh. Its about time though that we get some quality updates that aren’t wrapped around something that will be pointless in two weeks. I always tend to think that no news is good news but its hard when that goes on for weeks if not months at a time. I’m hoping a developer sees this thread at some point in time and can respond to it and let us know whats going on other than just “were working on it”. Details about GW2 and its future would be very nice accepting, that way we can give feedback and make the game we all love even better.

E Tan.7385:

IMHO, the GW2 futur is very bad if they keep focus only on farm farm farm farm farm, and grind grind grind grind activities without any focus on the core game and game mechanisms and stop that awfull farm and grind for everything.

These are the kinds of changes I’m looking for. The “feature” patches are what interest me greatly. Things like WXP, champ bags, etc are great additions to GW2. I was hoping today was going to be the start of them but I guess we’ll have to wait again. My best guess is the big update that was supposed to come today, that got delayed, had a few things that Anet wants to roll out with the balance update so they held off on it all together.

Also guys, please keep the conversation filled with serious replies only. Its not a problem now but I don’t want this thread closed because of comments that don’t aid the topic(s) at hand. Appreciated!

Unknownhero.6745:

The end of the living story for me was rather anti-climatic and sad. A cutscene that wouldn’t load for me, and a lame epilogue of meaningless babble in a seedy bar. The end of Zhaitan/ personal story had more feeling than that, atleast it felt sorta like a party. LA is in ruins and none of the NPCs seem to care or have much to say, nobody really seems concerned an Elder dragon may have woke up, so really why should I care either?
Everything I have read about any new content seems so vague and wishy washy, like its a big secret. I don’t really see anything atm to get excited about. So I guess things go back to normal, grind the same old dungeons/ fractals, re-explore the same old maps, switch back and forth between the same old toons . Do some pvp/wvw or hop in the champ train and do the mindless zerg in quest for gold.
The living story was a big reason I kept coming back, but now its gone, boredom is going to get the best of me. I love the game for many reasons and don’t really want to find entertainment elsewhere, but sadly I have already started downloading other second rate free to play games, to keep me amused. My days spent in GW are going to be fewer and fewer, and I will regain a new interest if and when this so called “future” gets here.

You know, I kind of expected it to be something bigger as well. The current living story (today’s release) is very minimal so I’m expecting the one with the dragon to be rather large and intense. Now though, I’ve got two weeks to get any alts ready for Season 2 WvW which might be a let down like before but I’m willing to give it a chance before making any calls.

Today’s patch: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-March-18-2014

Very true, Khang. There are lots of things I think GW2 does well (that’s why I’m still playing it!). The other topic of the team talking to us is true as well. Its all about perspective though as you said. Compared to some communities, the amount of responses from the team is amazing but others, it seems really lacking.

The point I’m going for in this post is to put a bunch of ideas and concerns I hear all the time all into one post. This should help the development team move forward and hopefully come here and address specifically as possible what is going on behind closed doors without them getting in trouble. A lot of people also tend to think that the one issue that bothers them the most is the single thing that should be worked on and NOW. This is just not the case. The development team has to go in the direction of the entire community as a whole and do what they think is in the best interests of their product and its customers. Anet is a company, they have to make money as well so keeping customers happy is a big part of this (as it is with any company). Anet relies on the direct sales of GW2 + the gem store to turn profits for them. If they don’t hold interests among GW2 players, the players will leave, gem store sales will drop, and Anet will have to find alternative ways to stay in business.

Removing an option like this has many faults. 1. It closes the ways to obtain a precursor. 2. It forces players to grind out specific dungeons. 3. It kills the precursor economy and makes getting one even more painful.

Yeah. I’ve heard the same responses for months now (I actually put off making a legendary since last September in hopes of a new set coming out. Just last week though, I got tired of waiting and made Twilight). It would be great to get some kind of update as to where precisely things are going. Obviously, for competition and business reasons, they can’t go into great detail about certain things but some answers would be nice. I’ve got a lot of people leaving the game right now for D3 simply because GW2 doesn’t hold their interests anymore.

I’m always here to help make GW2 a better game! Thanks for the kind response.

The guys on FA were pretty quiet when I was there but friendly when they talked. I would avoid Maguuma due to trolls and immaturity. SoS is another decent option.

If you’re looking for WvW + an active community, stay in T2 or higher. That’s just me though.

Long post but will be broken into sections for convenience.

I started off playing GW2 because I wanted something I could progress in and it would provide a nice change of pace from my competitive first-person shooter days. For the most part, this was all well and good. Getting exotic gear, exploring the maps, and eventually jumping into some WvW and PvP.

Fast forward to present day, I look back and enjoy several of the updates we got but nothing was lasting. Its an obvious issue with GW2 that has been brought up dozens of times that there simply isn’t enough permanent content. We keep getting promised with more but it never comes.

So since talking directly with a developer is rather hard and often gets me nowhere, I figured I would finally get around to posting to hear what you guys think…

Here are a few things people in my guild of 400+ active members have wondered/asked about on a (what feels like) daily basis. That means these are topics that come up all the time and aren’t just my personal wishlist.

1. A guild update. There needs to be an overhaul or improvement to the UI. Increased permissions, more guild missions, more mission types, a possible in-game lottery system, guild commander pins (for missions or havoc groups in WvW) that only members of the guild can see, and more. People want to do more things as a guild than just once a week missions or havoc in WvW.

2. In part to the guild update, it would be nice to see instanced, PvE content that 20-30 players can do. Think of larger dungeons or something like a “raid” from other MMO’s.

3. More skins. The amount of armor and weapon choices are pretty slim. Its nice to see some get added with certain living stories but I feel like its not quite enough.

4. A new set of legendary weapons and possibly legendary armor. New weapons that don’t involve rainbows or bright flowers would be great. Giving the legendary weapons “styles” would be nice too. Kind of like a male/female version. Precursor crafting would also need to to arrive at the same time to prevent the trading post from fluctuating too much. This could all go into the same update and the art team could have a LOT of fun with different posters and trailers for it.

5. Animations. The animations for some skills need to be reworked to make sure the game is more about skill and not button mashing. If a player can see an arrow being drawn a different way and know to dodge it, they should be rewarded for this (by not taking damage). The most recent example is the change to longbow, pin-down for Warrior that is being changed that will show a bit of a white aura around the arrow. This is a great step towards more competitive play.

6. New maps. Bazaar of the Four Winds was one of the most successful updates. There was a lot to do to keep everyone happy. It introduced a fun activity, had plenty of new skins, a new map, and more. The worst part though? It didn’t last long. On top of the new maps, there would obviously have to be new mob types, possibly a new world boss, and then consider the zone’s level (1-80, and if it would upscale you).

I realize what it takes to program this sort of thing as I’m a programmer myself. The above listed topics are simply questions I hear and see all the time and would like a somewhat definitive answer other than “its being worked on”. Implementing all of the above, let alone just one, is a TON of work. It can’t be done in a week or even a month but I feel these topics were coming up enough that I should post about it in hopes of getting some kind of answer from a member of the developer team.

Kurodius.7463:

Ashabhi and Blackarps, I’ll respond to you both at the same time.

When I say payoff, I mean I want something of consequence and something that feels like an ending to an arc. As of this moment the villain died unceremoniously, showing herself to be far less interesting than she could have been, and just left us with something “bigger” on the horizon.

The ending of the personal story was a letdown for most people, but it still had a payoff. The Payoff is that Destiny’s Edge was reunited, the races and pacts were united as one, marched up to Zhitan’s door and knocked hard. We boarded a giant Mega Death Ship and blasted Zhitan away. It was not well implemented, but it was conclusive.

The Living story Season 1 does not feel like a season 1 finale to me because it end on giving us something else to deal with, while having nothing else of consequence occur. All key character still live except for Scarlet, LA is being retaken, and nothing has changed beyond just one more dragon to deal with.

I gotcha. Yeah the story part of Scarlet was never really there to begin with. They tried really hard here in 2014 to put a bunch of puzzle pieces together and show why they did a lot of things in 2013 but the finale was pretty lackluster. The fight is fun but I definitely expected more. I expect Mordremoth to be a pretty huge deal. I'm expecting a new map, unique rewards, and new combat mechanics. I'm hoping for much more but we won't know for another week and a half.

What kind of “payoff” do you mean? Its hard to be disappointed by the dragon when we haven’t even seen it yet. We could be getting a new zone that’s filled with level 80 mobs, lots of events, and a dragon that appears every hour….okay I’m getting my hopes up but really, we have no idea whats in store for the next update yet.

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 3
2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 3
3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 3
4. The Secret of Southsun – 5
5. Last Stand at Southsun – 5
6. Dragon Bash – 8
7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 10
8. Cutthroat Politics – 6
9. Queen’s Jubilee – 9
10. Clockwork Chaos – 7
11. Tequatl Rising – 9
12. Twilight Assault – 6
13. Tower of Nightmares – 6
14. The Nightmares Within – 6
15. Fractured – 8
16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 7
17. The Origins of Madness – 7
18. The Edge of the Mists – 8
19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 9
20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 5 (the bugs really killed it but aside from that, its good overall)

Overall its felt decent but there is a real lack of memorable content. Dragon Bash, the first Wintersday and Halloween, and Bazaar Four Winds are the most memorable for me. I’ve enjoyed the changes to Tequatl and the combat mechanics introduced with Battle for Lion’s arch as well. The nice thing about the newest ones in Battle for Lion’s Arch is that its simple enough for people to get without allowing them to just stand and auto-attack till the creature dies. It keeps you moving and paying attention the whole fight without giving crummy rewards (talking about the holographic fight).

My average score is about a 6.5/10. This seems about right. I was surprised and impressed with the quality of some of the updates while very disappointed with others. I think the updates should be more about having fun and not so much grinding out achievements for a new back item or helmet. I’m also not an achievement person, I just want to play and not feel like I have to do content a certain way.

Zenith.6403:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, this instance of Living Story didn’t work as well as was hoped. It can work, with some reworking and refocus on actually expanding on the game and/or altering things so it actually has impact.

- The biggest problem with living story is that it’s not living or organic. It’s created and released every two weeks. They did make permanent change related to living story in Lion’s Arch with that lighthouse. Nobody cares about it because it’s just a prop with no interactivity.

What makes games worth playing is gameplay – number of decisions player can make that are not mutually exclusive. If there was no jumping ability in this game it would be duller, because jumping is one thing that gives player decision. On the other hand if 3 explorable zones suddenly went missing it wouldn’t necessarily make the game any worse, because choosing which zone to explore is mutually exclusive decision. Same with race-specific personal storylines which is biggest waste of development resources imaginable.

Once you’ve burned through the unique content you’re left with the core system of few player decisions, which causes the boredom players experience.

So very true. You get past these updates that are only 2 weeks long and you’re left with the same content you had a month ago. The biggest updates that seemed the most well received were Dragon Bash, Wintersday (first time), Halloween (first time), and Bazaar Four Winds. There were plenty of events to do and the game felt different. Most people got to enjoy the updates and it didn’t matter what aspect of the game they played (pvp/wvw/pve) because they got to experience it in some way without having to really grind out any items and miss out on what they love doing the most.

Honestly, no. The game doesn’t have any new content that would really excite you. The only thing you have missed are the two week long living story updates which isn’t bad because they develop them in a way where you don’t feel left out for missing them…meaning that people don’t have any real advantage over you because you decided to play another game or couldn’t play GW2.

The boring Scarlet LS is out of the way now and Anet has told us there will be some more feature updates coming this year and that they will rotate between living story and feature updates. This all starts March 18th which will be interesting to see where Anet might go later this year.

Its pretty clear this week that you aren’t the only person. I’ve seen numbers in T1 WvW drop significantly (somewhat due to the LA events but its not much of an excuse for “full” servers). People in my guild, including myself, don’t know what to do. Do we quit playing? Join a new guild? Give the game a break? The hardest part for me is that I’m an officer for a large guild and I’ve assumed the role of being the person to keep things moving smooth on a daily basis. I’m not a dungeon or fractal person because there isn’t any real challenge there and find the content to be repetitive and bland.

On the subject of living story, its been a total drag for me. I haven’t had any real fun since Dragon Bash. Every update has felt fun for about a day (few hours) and then I don’t really touch it after that. Even with the LA attacks happening every hour for 3 weeks now, I think I only did them 5-6 times.

My wishlist: More legendary weapons, solo and big group content for end-game players, and a guild update (could be tied with group content) that would include new missions with better rewards and big 20 person instances for my guild to do. A WvW season 2 or tournament just doesn’t sound like much fun even though that’s where I spend most of my time. I need long-lasting content, not something that’s gone in two weeks.

Yeah, TC is the new SoR and currently the strongest server in WvW. They climbed the ranks and when SoR couldn’t keep up with BG and JQ in the PPT game, they transferred to TC (understandable move but it really messes up the balance when you move 100+ dedicated WvW players to one server). I would suggest what others have and move to IoJ, DB, or SoS. I would try to stay away from T3 if you enjoy constant WvW action though.

If you have to set your build to counter one thing, its a broken mechanic. Immobilization isn’t bad but being stuck for a good 5+ seconds while the bombs are dropped just means more and more people will switch to stun breakers and immobilize skills. That just breaks the balance.

TW left for SoS, Choo left for TC, and IRON left a few months ago. These were the primary SoR guilds that kept their PPT alive. In the last few weeks, Choo was “playing for fights” and it was pretty obvious they would transfer soon. I’m sure they wanted to transfer to TC so they could stay in T1 without having to join BG or JQ (who probably don’t have room or respect for them).

Its kind of sad to see SoR drop from T1 and all the guilds move around but now TC is in the mix and we’ll see how things play out.

You want to defend your home territory as much as possible (this applies to any WvW map). Even if you can’t upgrade something, you should still try and hold it the best you can. If you can drop one or even two arrow carts to deter the enemy group, they will focus their attention on something else. This often leads to the enemy focusing on the third party and allows you to setup an easy 2v1. If you let the enemy push too hard into your land, it’ll be hard to get out of spawn and eventually your PPT will really suffer which is why people will get cranky if you don’t defend certain things.

It also depends on what the people you are with want. Some people really want to play the PPT game (more dedicated and hardcore WvW players) while others just want to karma train (people just looking for easy loot/gold). Either way, you can’t please everyone but if you want to make a good name for yourself in WvW and keep leading, you’ll play the PPT game before your reputation plummets and the mean/trolling whispers start.

Its hard to jump to any kind of conclusions when we don’t have exact details on the systems or rewards that will be coming with the tournament.

The main problem that we faced in JQ (and I’m sure SoR and BG did as well) as that our WvW maps were filled with less dedicated WvW players just there to get achievement points and/or rewards. People were literally training around the ruins just to get the achievement points that came with doing that. Guess what? That kept 10-15 people that wanted to actually WvW out of the map. This is mostly solved now by the release of EotM but we know that it has a mix of servers so that means achievements won’t be 100% based on the BL’s and EB.

What does all this mean? It means that Anet seems to have learned (based on what we can see in the blog post) from season 1. They know what they can and can’t do based on rewards and population/strength of servers. However, I don’t think this tournament will be flawless by any means.

I think its more about downed state skills needing some work versus saying stealth needs a rework.

Is the difference between a T2 and T3 server really big? Right now, there aren’t any T2 servers that could keep up with the numbers and coverage that BG and JQ have. I don’t think handicapping either server would solve anything but it would sure cause a lot of complaining. A native player shouldn’t be penalized on rewards or anything of the sort because of where they chose to play when they bought the game. It just means that rewards need to be based on your personal participation but not too out of reach for casual WvW players. The only rewards you can give based on placement in the tournament would be novelty ones such as finishers.

I wish there were more legendary weapons that weren’t so much about sparkles and rainbows and the fact there was a little more depth to the guild aspect of the game.

Are you guys starting all these topics at once or will we see them in some kind of order over the course of a few days/weeks?

I’ve got a few ideas for the WvW discussion but I don’t want to forget them. I’ll probably jot them down in a txt file tonight actually.

There is actually a guild (I think on BG) named APEX that will throw all necro marks and wells at their feet if you rush them. If you don’t rush them, they portal bomb you. Its an interesting tactic that works pretty well if you don’t kill their mesmer or know about the stacking.

I don’t even want to imagine a zerg of necros well and mark spamming more than they do now.

I’m going to assume its something we get a week or so in advance just so they can make any tweaks they need to before the tournament begins….that’s what I’d do anyways.

It seems a lot of people here didn’t read the recent post for the WvW Spring 2014 Tournament aka Season 2. Details here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/wvw-spring-2014-tournament/

As for the topic at hand, I’m mixed on it. Anet is saying things will be better as far as rewards and competition but I’m still not convinced. I think if they can make most, if not all, achievements obtainable in EOTM, we will be fine. There was also a lot of 2v1 in JQ’s match-ups against BG and SoR because JQ had the easiest schedule despite BG being the stacked server at the time. Now, BG and JQ are pretty even and SoR has fallen off the map (literally too). I don’t think TC or and T2 servers would be able to compete against JQ or BG so it would be very 1 sided matches.

Another thing I want to add in is that they make it sound like server transfers were a problem last time so we could see a change in that aspect as well. This could be good or bad but I’m not counting my chickens too early without more info.

Hardcore players will go where the fights are. If EOTM has other guild groups, expect ones from your server to be there. On the other hand, some of the hardcore guilds care more about winning or PPT than the fights themselves and will stay in the maps where world score matters.

Its not that Rangers are bad, there are just better options when zerging.

BG has the best of T1 servers. Its mainly in part of their 2-3 guilds that are huge on PPT during this time and its usually when they will score the most points on JQ and SoR.

Heavy armor is the only armor I play with the exception of Necromancer. I love them both. I generally think of my Warrior as the tough guy that does more damage and protects the weaker players. My Guardian is the support player that every group of players will need no matter what they do (WvW, PvP, PvE).

My Guardian is more built for WvW zerging, commanding, and support roles in small groups. The Warrior is more for solo roaming in WvW. Guardian is better with staff 1 ‘Wave of Wrath’ for tagging mobs in PvE but without retraiting, my Warrior does more damage on single targets. This is just how I choose to play the classes based on their build variety and how they feel/play for me.

I’m kind of bummed as well. I always enjoy reading the preview on Monday afternoons. Oh well, only 13 more hours or so till the update goes live.

Keiel.7489:

Incase someone reaches the WvW rank cap, infinity.

Which won’t be for some time. The max is 10,000 which is Diamond Legend. The highest I’ve seen is about 3,500 so even if they play the same rate they are now, its at least a year or two away and by then I’m sure they would have gotten burnt out on GW2, moved onto another game, or slowed down.

Coming from an NA player: Agg, NS, TKG, TW, and Choo. Choo has looked pretty big in size recently but they are still very organized.

Obviously we don’t have a problem with numbers on JQ but in my guild, I’ve noticed people are coming back now. After the long holiday break, people are getting back into the game. The new living story update, season 1 WvW over, and holidays ending, we are seeing the population rise again with less and less inactive players.

BG is experiencing the same thing JQ did this time last year. Winning by a huge margin every week, constant queue times, huge blobs that make you lag even going near them (as if the imminent death wasn’t bad enough), etc. If it keeps up, BG is going to see the same thing JQ did and your WvW guilds will just leave since they can’t get on the same map without ridiculous queue times (assuming they don’t want to wait for EOTM to be released).

A lot of this is probably brought on by the select few from BG gloating about things like the first Teq kill and being the obvious season 1 WvW winners. People like things to be handed to them. Even a few months back before the WvW season, we had people on JQ leaving to SoR when they were beating but us and you guys on BG. It didn’t make any sense to us on JQ because it was just ruining the balance even more. Now I don’t even think those guilds that transferred exist…see what greed does?

So yeah, you might get some easy bags on BG right now in WvW but eventually it leads to maps with outnumbered buffs, no commanders, and BG just roaming a map by themselves.

Its definitely a problem, even in T1 where it might seem like its not. If you even go close to a keep with your zerg, the other server is there about the same time and will siege it up until you leave. This means most keeps are fully upgraded with plenty of siege throughout the whole week and the only way to come close to taking them is a golem rush with mostly Omegas.

Folie.7980:

it’d be hilarious to see all the BG whining if that part about a lower reward for winning servers was implemented. they’d probably pay for guilds to leave their server

I laughed more than I should at this.

Rewards in WvW are fine. If anything, they should be increased across the board but its more about having fun to most of us even though the extra gold income is nice from rank-up chests. You should be rewarded for winning, not losing.

Zikory.6871:

Probably not, it would probably just start a long list of complaint threads. This would also start to alienate pug players as guilds will be less likely to allow others to play with them because of loot/WXP.

This is exactly what I thought about. Complaining on the forums as well as guilds running tag/pinless.

I don’t want to be yelled at because of people wanting less numbers so they get better loot or more WXP. That discourages teamwork and hurts the community.

I’d like to face a T1 EU server. Any of them would do. I just want to see how different EU servers play as a whole versus just one or two guilds that transfer to NA servers.

Why do you need mounts? There are plenty of waypoints. That’s what they are there for.

Capes would be nice but I’m open to adding more armor looks and types any day.

We just had a huge discussion on this in the WvW forum.

Here is a list of all the CDI we have had: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Collaborative-Development-Master-Sticky